15 glorious minutes with Half-Minute Hero (preview)

I remember the moment when I lost interest in Japanese role-playing games. It was in mid-September and I had a choice between pre-ordering Final Fantasy XII and Rockstar’s Bully. Instead of putting money down on a series I’ve been playing since the age of 8, I picked the open-world Bart Simpson simulator.

For some reason, fighting through 40 hours of monster battles with the occasional jaw-dropping cut-scene didn’t appeal to me anymore. I didn’t want to deal with the grind or with the item-management. The whole thing seemed so archaic and dull.

Since then, the genre’s been dead to me , but over the past year, a new take on it has piqued my interest. The JRPG has been around long enough that it has its own cliches, its own worn-out idiosyncrasies, and what’s arising right now are parodies that poke fun at that. From Software is generating buzz with 3D Dot Game Heroes and Opus Studio has its own amazing entry calledHalf-Minute Hero.

It’s a game that takes the slow pace of a JRPG and ups the tempo drastically. If this were music, it would be like going from a melodic ballad of Boyz II Men’s “Yesterday” to the machine-gun patter ofEminem’s “My Name Is.” The game moves so fast it’s almost unrecognizable. It’s fresh. It’s new. It’s a JRPG on crack.

In part of Half-Minute Hero, players take on the role of a would-be hero who has to tackle the obligatory quest to save the world. The only problem is that an evil being has taught others a spell that destroys the world in 30 seconds.

To win, players have to book it. They don’t fight enemies via menu, they just keep running forward hitting foes until they’re victorious. They don’t solve quests. They just scan text, go to a cave with the special hammer, kill the boss and return with it so the carpenter can repair the bridge that leads to the castle with the boss.
Of course, there’s some strategy to the gameplay. The Would-be hero can run but it reduces his health. In addition, players will have some outside help from the Time Goddess who can reset time, but it will cost money because according to her, time is money. Players have the normal leveling and item-buying in towns as well.

Each quest to save the world is a level within the game, and with at least 30 stages in this section, that’s a lot of gameplay sitting there.

But Opus Studio doesn’t stop with the would-be hero. Half-Minute Hero offers three other playable characters, each with their own styles of play. If players pick the princess, the game turns into an old school shooter. Choose the Dark Lord and it turns into a strategy game, where he has to summon minions.

Each character has its own distinct storyline, but the element that unifies the whole project is the 8-bit art style and the anime cut-scenes. It’s a move that works for the project and makes me just a little nostalgic.

For the first time in years, I’m probably going to put money down on an JRPG. I’m looking forward to checking out the whole game on the PlayStation Portable later this fall.